"Let it be remembered how powerful the influence of a single introduced tree or mammal has been shown to be."

—CHARLES DARWIN

About Rat Island

Rat Island is a tundra-covered mass of volcanic rock midway between Alaska and Siberia. It is the site of a pivotal battle to resurrect the multitudes of seabirds that have been massacred by a plague of invading rats.

Rat Island is also a metaphor, for an offshore world under siege by aliens—by rats and cats and foxes, goats and pigs, mongooses and snakes—predators of defenseless prey, destroyers of fragile habitats, ferried to the farthest reaches of the oceanic archipelago during the human settlement of the globe. These are the targets of a global island campaign headed by an unlikely alliance of conservation scientists and professional killers, who have come to defend some of the most endangered species and spectacular gatherings of wildlife on the planet—by killing their enemies wholesale.